Modern Biomedical Culture

Question 1

Whose ideas are contemporary medicine based on?

Answer 1

Galen and Hippocrates mostly

Question 2

What are the benefits of contemporary medicine compared to traditional medicine?

Answer 2

Diagnose and treat illnesses more accurately and effectively. Old medicine emphasized faith and prayer for healing.

Question 3

Biomedicine

Answer 3

Approach to healing that sees illness as a biological issue. It has 5 components: mind-body dualism, physical reductionism, specific etiology, regimen and control, and machine metaphor

Question 4

Mind-body dualism

Answer 4

• mind and body are separate entities
• while the body is the physical matter where illnesses come from, the mind is non-physical and allows one to comprehend the world
• Ignores SDH
  -Created by Rene Descartes in the 17th century

Question 5

Physical reductionism

Answer 5

• Observing a physical entity through its smaller parts
• The typical approach to observing a disease, but may miss the bigger picture (e.g. SDH)

Question 6

Specific etiology

Answer 6

• All diseases have a unique, identifiable cause, which determines the healing methods
• Might be too personalized to unique situations

Question 7

Machine metaphor

Answer 7

• Viewing the body as a machine with different parts that perform functions that contribute to the “machine’s” overall performance

Question 8

Regimen & control

Answer 8

• All illnesses can be prevented through a healthy lifestyle (e.g. proper diet and exercise)

Question 9

Secularization

Answer 9

The process of detaching from religious influence within a society

Question 10

Allopathic

Answer 10

Treatments used by healers that produce the opposite effect of the dissease

Question 11

Medicalization

Answer 11

When aspects of everyday life become related to biomedicine

Question 12

What are the three levels of medicalization? Define them

Answer 12

• Conceptually: Medical vocab (e.g. ADHD terminology)
• Institutionally: Organizations integrate medical approaches into problems (e.g. programs to help with ADHD)
• Interactions: Providers and patients view all illnesses as medical issues (e.g. getting a diagnosis for ADHD)

Question 13

How many mental illness diagnoses were there in the DSM originally? How many are there as of 2013

Answer 13

1952: 106 disorders
2013: 297 disorders

Question 14

What did Thomas Szasz believe

Answer 14

• Believed that mental illnesses aren’t regular illnesses
• Diagnosing behaviours as a disorder is society’s way of getting people to conform to the norm by labelling abnormal behaviours as “bad”

Question 15

Some examples of why blindly following medical professionals is bad

Answer 15

Eugenics, forced sterilization

Question 16

Advantages and disadvantages of medicalization

Answer 16

Advantage: Improves some aspects of individual life
Disadvantage: Seen as a form of social control in which medical providers are the authority

Question 17

What is the first step in de-medicalizing society?

Answer 17

Preventing medical providers/reversing the actions of medical providers so that they are not an authoritarian influence on society

Question 18

Iatrogenesis

Answer 18

Medical treatments that cause harm

Question 19

What are the three types of iatrogenesis?

Answer 19

Clinical: Harm caused by a physician through a medical procedure
Social: When people depend on medical experts who prescribe treatments, even if they can be taken care of by the individual, resulting in increased consumption of medical care
Cultural: When a culture aims to escape pain, suffering and even death

Question 20

Health indicators

Answer 20

Quantifiable way of describing a population’s health

Question 21

Health outcome

Answer 21

When health care interventions change health